Spring Fling - Florida

[alek]

I am flying the Florida flatlands this week in a little fun comp that David Prentice organized out of Florida Ridge in La Belle, Florida. We're taking advantage of all that amazing Florida flying that hang glider pilots have been raving about for decades. About a mile east of Florida Ridge is a housing development that never made it. The roads going in all directions were put in sometime in the 70's, but no houses were ever built and no poles and wires ever erected. Makes for an ideal place for winch towing.

Saturday was day 1, and my first day ever towing a paraglider. I took three tows finally sticking a little bit on my last one, but I soon lost it and landed back at the start. One person made goal for about a 45 mile flight with a couple of other landing just short. Yesterday was blown out. Today the winds were pretty strong again, though with launchable lulls. I was one of the first ones to tow up and managed to thermal up to about 3400, not quite cloud base, a few times. Then hit massive sink and landed about 11 miles out. Later on in the day it was booming and other pilots reported 1800 up lift.

More to com,
Alek

[alek]

Another excellent day yesterday. The wind had clocked around to the NE. Dry air and high pressure. Not a hint of a cloud the whole day. I flew over two hours for 24 miles landing at the turnpoint. Had a couple of low saves, getting down to 475 feet at one time, but the prospects of a really long and swampy walkout kept me moving.

A couple of other pilots abandoned the task after the turnpoint and bailed downwind eventually flying about 60 miles to Naples landing a little short of the beach. The weather is looking really good for the rest of the week.

[alek]

Today the winds were east when most of us launched and going more NE later on. I did pretty well flying 20 miles and staying on a decent track.

[alek]

The Florida flats flying this time of the year is unbelievable. I came here as a very fresh P2 with about 1.5 hours of total airtime on my paraglider, never having soared it and never having towed it. Out of eight days here I flew seven, racking up 10 hours and 117 xc miles!! My best flight was 42 miles -- I flew a task pushing against increasingly strong crosswind for over 3 hours. It's that good here. The conditions are strong, yet manageable midday even for a beginner like me. It was by far the best week -- flying-wise -- I've ever had paragliding or hang gliding.

David Prentice does an outstanding job running this little friendly comp and working with each pilot to improve their skills. I couldn't recommend it stronger for anyone wishing to improve as a pilot, or just enjoy consistently awesome flying. Mark your calendars for May of next year.

Alek

[hang_pilot]

I came here as a very fresh P2 with about 1.5 hours of total airtime on my paraglider, never having soared it and never having towed it. ... My best flight was 42 miles

That's incredible! Way to totally go for it. Looking forward to flying with you soon, so you can teach me.

~Daniel

[pink_albatross]

Oh my gawd, Alek!
Way to go!!!
-- ellis